David J. Peterson received a BA in English and Linguistics from UC Berkeley in 2003 and an MA in Linguistics from UC San Diego in 2005. He created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO’s Game of Thrones, the Castithan, Irathient and Indojisnen languages for Syfy’s Defiance, the Sondiv language for the CW’s Star-Crossed, the Lishepus language for Syfy’s Dominion, the Trigedasleng language for the CW’s The 100, and the Shiväisith language for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World. He’s been creating languages since 2000.

David J. Peterson’s first paid conlanging project occurred eight years before Game of Thrones. It was a language called Dai, and it was done in early 2001 for a high school student’s Dungeons & Dragons campaign. This paper provides a brief introduction to the nature of the work, and the full language, as it stood at that point.